Does science really tell us anything about pornography?

This website, sponsored by the Lighted Candle Society gives you quick access to the latest research and statistics around pornography.

 

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Social Scientific Research



• Results revealed that roughly two thirds (67% ) of young men and one half (49%) of young women agree that viewing pornography is acceptable, whereas nearly 9 out of 10 (87%) young men and nearly one third (31%) of young women reported using pornography.
  (Generation XXX: Pornography Acceptance and Use Among Emerging Adults, Journal of Adolescent Research, Vol. 23, No. 1, 6-30 (2008))
• Consistent with past third-person effect findings, the data in this study indicate that a substantial majority of U.S. adults see others as more adversely influenced by pornography than themselves. In addition, the results show that peoples' support for pornography restrictions parallels the discrepancy they perceive between effect
  on self and effect on others.
  Overrating the X-Rating: The Third-Person Percetion and Support for Censorship of Pornography; Journal article by Albert C. Gunther; Journal of Communication, Vol. 45, 1995
• Forty-two percent of youth Internet users had been exposed to online pornography in the past year. Of those, 66% reported only unwanted exposure.
  (Unwanted and Wanted Exposure to Online Pornography in a National Sample of Youth Internet Users;Janis Wolak, JD, Kimberly Mitchell, PhD and David Finkelhor, PhD; 2007)
• A relationship exists between frequent pornography consumption and sexually aggressive behavior. This relationship is especially strong for those with the highest "predisposing" risk level for sexual aggression. Those who are at high risk for sexual aggression and who frequently consume pornography have sexual aggression levels that are four times higher than those who do not consume pornography frequently.
  ("Pornography and Sexual Aggression: Are there Reliable Effects and Can We Understand Them?" Annual Review of Sex Research Vol. 11, Number . , 2000. Page(s) 26-94.)
• Married women are more likely to experience distress over a partner's pornography use than are women in dating relationships. A woman's distress over her partner's pornography use is also influenced by the perceived frequency of the pornography consumption. Women who perceive their partners to be at the highest level of pornography use report more distress than women perceiving lower levels of frequency.
  ("Romantic Partners' Use of Pornography: Its Significance for Women" Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy Vol. 29, Number . , 2003. Page(s) 1-14.)
• Pornography consumption is significantly associated with perceptions of emotional infidelity. People also perceive online acts of infidelity as being authentic and real as offline acts.
  ("Pushing the Wrong Buttons: Men's and Women's Attitudes Toward Online and Offline Infidelity" 2003)
• People who have engaged in paid sex (i.e. used prostitution) or had extramarital affairs were three times as likely to have used cyberporn than those who did not.
  ("Adult Social Bonds and Use of Internet Pornography" - Social Science Quarterly Vol. 85, Number 1. March, 2004. Page(s) 75-88.)
• People who reported being happily married were 61 percent less likely to report using Internet pornography.
  (Ibid)
• Young men who are high consumers of pornography are more likely to engage in anal sex, as well as have sexual relations with a friend (i.e. someone with whom they are not in a loving romantic relationship).
  ("Associations Between Pornography Consumption and Sexual Practices Among Adolescents in Sweden"; International Journal of STD & AIDS Vol. 16, Number 2. February, 2005. Page(s) 102-107.)
• Seventy-one percent of adolescents surveyed believed pornography consumption influenced others' behavior, and 29 percent believed it affected their own behavior.
  (Ibid)
• In this study of Swedish high school students, the home environment was the most common place to consume pornography. Eighty-six percent of the students surveyed had consumed pornography, and eighty-three percent of these youth reported consuming pornography in their home.
  (Ibid)

 

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The brain, teens and pornography



• Exposure to sexual content in music, movies, television, and magazines accelerates white adolescents’ sexual activity and increases their risk of Engaging in early sexual intercourse
  (Jane D. Brown, Kelly Ladin L'Engle, Carol J. Pardun, Guang Guo, Kristin Kenneavy :American academy of Pediatrics April 4 2006)
• Youths who viewed more sexual content than average behaved sexually like youths who were 9 to 17 months older but watched average amounts of sex on TV. This effect is not insubstantial. Predicted probabilities showed that watching the highest levels of sexual content effectively doubled the next-year likelihood of initiating intercourse and greatly increased the probability of advancing in noncoital activity. In other words…12-year-olds who watched the highest levels of this content among youths their age appeared much like youths 2 to 3 years older who watched the lowest levels of sexual content among their peers. The magnitude of these results are such that a moderate shift in the average sexual content of adolescent TV viewing could have substantial effects on sexual behavior
  (PEDIATRICS Vol. 114 No. 3 September 2004, pp. e280-e289)
• Listening to music with degrading sexual lyrics is related to advances in a range of sexual activities among adolescents, whereas this does not seem to be true of other sexual lyrics. This result is consistent with sexual-script theory and suggests that cultural messages about expected sexual behavior among males and females may underlie the effect
  (PEDIATRICS Vol. 118 No. 2 August 2006, pp. e430)